www.nathanweselake.com

Best Team Building Exercise Ever.

PAC's youth pastor Peter Ralph (who in the last 3 weeks has had an incredibly busy and incredibly fruitful schedule; if you see him say "thanks" because chances are something he did made your life better) had an awesome dream.  Here is his dream:

I (Nathan) was leading the PAC staff through some team building exercises which were apparently pretty intense.  First, they were mounted on stallions and jousting each other, blood and guts all over.  How this is team building I am not sure.

Then the dream got better. 

For the next team building activity, I had them all get into the deep end of a lake with the instructions that I would be releasing a bunch of snapping turtles to chase them down.  The last staff to get bit by a snapping turtle was the winner. 

So the staff all jump into the water and start swimming around while I go release the turtles.  The "turtles" were women age 60+ in our congregation wearing turtle bathing suits complete with hard shells and tails who were swimming around trying to bite the staff.  The staff are all thrashing around in a panic trying to avoid the turtles.

Not entirely sure what these dreams mean as far as how Peter's subconcious mind views my leadership.

Not sure what that means for how his subconcious mind views the senior citizens in our church. 

But it sure had me staring the day with a laugh.

Some of what is going on in my head these days.

Disappointment is flammable so make sure your expectations line up with God's promises.

- how many people walk away from God for disappointing them because He never did what He never promised to do?

Clarity dissolves resistance and what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. (Dan Heath)

- ambiguity and options lead to decision paralysis; be clear about what needs to be done and clear about how.  Don't leave people in a situation where they say "OK, now what?"  Articulate the "Now what" and let them choose to either do it or not.

- discipline is tiring; choose what you are going to be disciplined about because you only have so much jam in your discipline muscles.

God invites you to be a part of what the Trinity is doing, not because it is more effective to do it with you, but because it increases your joy and His.  

- it's about participation in the Trinity not "ministry"

Every time a preacher preaches the Word of God something happens. Always. (Darrell Johnson)

- so make sure you are preaching the Word of God and then get excited about what is going to happen, and get excited every single weekend

For western Christians, martyrdom is simply being a disciple. (James Houston)

- actually obeying Christ vis a vis forgiveness, attitude, money, and eschatological orientation in 2010 in Canada is hard.  Don't despise the comparatively little steps of faith you take because someone somewhere got thrown to lions.  They had to make one big choice and Nero made sure they followed through.  You on the other hand, have to make thousands of little choices for the rest of your life which determine your discipleship.

You have to forgive people who haven't wronged you yet.  You get to decide for the next 40 years what it means to honor God with your disproportionate wealth.  And so on and so on.  Not to take anything away from those who faced lions, but what you are facing isn't easy either.

There are actually two possible answers to the following question.

"What did I do to contribute to this problem?"

Everyone has to ask that question every time they are involved in trying to solve a problem.  To not examine their own heart or motive reveals a lack of character which makes relationships difficult and personal growth nearly impossible. People who spend their whole lives never admitting they have done anything wrong end up with a life that proves them wrong.    

And of course, after finding the answer to that question, you must own and make up for whatever your part was.  This is all pretty simple and basic, but nonetheless, crucial. 

I want to go somewhere more subtle but just as crucial.

There is a tendency among some to ask the question and always find something that was their fault; even when it is not.  Their answer to "What did I do to contribute to the problem?" is always "something" and never "nothing". So choices and situations are mentally replayed, motives second guessed, wondering "what if", and wishing for the wisdom to have done it differently when honestly, what was done was perfectly FINE.  

I started thinking about this while reading the Psalms over the last 3 months. 

David's life and the Psalms show a good mix of him answering the question BOTH ways.

While David has the courage to examine himself before God to see if there is wrong motive or impurity present (something) he also has the courage to admit he isn't the problem (nothing).   I am amazed at David's rock solid confidence in his own "rightness". Sometimes it is his fault, but other times he has "enemies" and he is "innocent" with a clarity and boldness which makes us uncomfortable, but is probably healthy.

You don't find him wondering:

"Gee, maybe if I had worn Saul's armor when I fought Goliath, Saul and I would have gotten off on a better foot."

"I should have asked Saul what song he wanted me to play on my harp for him instead of just playing something generically soothing.  Then maybe he wouldn't have thrown his spear at me."

"If I could just go back and present those Philistine foreskins to Saul in a more humble manner, maybe he wouldn't be hunting me down for the last three years. My bad."

Saul had crap in his life that David's actions did not cause.  David just became a target for Saul's mess - and David had the courage to see it for what it was. Didn't mean he was cruel to Saul or wrote him off.  Just means he didn't go down the silly path of wondering what he did that made Saul behave like Saul was.

Take a lesson from David.  

Ask "What did I do to contribute to this?" but then have the courage to actually provide the answer that fits, either:

a) Something - and then own up to your part and make it right.

or

b) Nothing - realize it isn't actually your problem, your actions just happened to take you across a fault line that was already active.  So call a spade a spade, and move on.

Remember, there are two answers - and a healthy person's life will reflect that.  

It's like raaaaaaaaain on your wedddddding day, a free riiiiiiide, when you've already...

Chances are you lead something.

Your family.  A team at work.  A team of volunteers.  A rec. volleyball team.  A hobby group.  A house church.  Something.

Chances are at some point you will not lead as well as you should.  I suggest to you that it might be in your least finest moments as a leader that you will discover you are actually not that bad a leader.  This might be ironic, I don't know, ever since the Alanis song of the same name I have been cautious in labeling things so.

The reason this moment of failure may reveal a triumph is that it may reveal that you have done a good job performing one of the central tasks of leadership.  

It may reveal you have actually built a team.  

Here is how you know.  

If, in the aftermath of your failure (and I am not talking supreme moral failure here, just general crummy leadership stuff, failure to confront, poor communication, neglect leading to lack of morale, that sort of stuff), the team around you picks up the pieces for you, you can feel like you have done a decent job simply because you have chosen and empowered the kind of people who don't stand around saying "ha ha look at how this poor schmo blasted this thing to smithereens" but instead they think for awhile, decide that had you had your wits about you and been in one of your finer moments would never have dropped the ball like you did and so all on their own they figure out what you would have liked to have done if you had been able to do it and then the DO IT THEMSELVES and don't hold you hostage over it.

Because I can't imagine that is clear, here are a couple examples from today.

PAC's ONE CAMPAIGN.  

Even though I know better and like to think I would have caught this mistake, the truth is I did not include representatives from kids ministry and youth ministry in the dreaming of this idea (might have been able to excuse that one), nor in the strategic implementation of it throughout the year (that one I don't have any excuse for).  

Didn't even really think of it.  

Kind of humbling to just throw it out there like that but it is what it is and didn't occur to me to think alignment from cradle to grave - but I wish I had.

Anyway, I get an email today from the kids ministry leader formerly known as PROTO-Shea (and I imagine Lydia and Shea's teams in kids church were all part of this) detailing how kids church is going to change what they are doing for the rest of 2010 to make sure all PAC's kids get in on the ONE CAMPAIGN.  

Then Peter sits down for a cup of coffee with me and fills me in on how the youth are reading through Luke and how he is intentionally tracking with the ONE CAMPAIGN, choosing to bail on his previous plans for the sake of unity.

I felt like I had dropped the ball.  And truly I had.  Two major ministries of PAC left with little direction vis a vis alignment.  

But when you surround yourself with people who pick up dropped balls and run with them you can't feel bad for long.  

Your one solid move of hiring the right people can end up covering up some not so impressive moves later on.

Also true, seeing them have to "catch up" from my lack of communication and the gracious way they did it will help me learn from my mistakes.  Unfortunately, I learn more from mistakes I make that I don't want to repeat than from almost anything else.  

Honour vs. Welcome

Been challenged reading Isadore Sharp's story of the founding and growing of the Four Seasons (see reading list on right).  The strength of their brand, the lengthy tenure of their employees, and their market defying consistent performance are all impressive.  Over and over, Sharp points to the people around him as the reason for the success - and rightly so.

I think there are two lessons in it for us at PAC, and we talked about them over a staff lunch yesterday. 

Below are the lessons and some of the stuff we talked about:

1. Let's up our value of people to "honouring" them instead of mere "kindness".

- kindness is smiling and saying "welcome to PAC" at the door and honoring is personally ushering them through kid's church registration, pouring them a coffee, and then connecting them with someone to sit with.

- kindness is assuming everyone wants to be ushered through kid's church registration, pouring a coffee, and then connecting them with someone to sit with and honouring is paying attention to body language and verbal cues which indicate they would prefer to be left alone and navigate a new experience "anonymously"

- kindness is having a shovelled or dry parking lot and honouring is having our volunteers and staff who arrive early parking far away from the doors so new people can find a prime parking spot.

- kindness is having some jokes in your message so people can track with you, honouring is trying to get into people's lives so the application of the text brings hope and is relevant.

2. If you honour each other at the staff level you will honour guests.

- kindness greets administrative staff with a smile, honour calls you to ensure you have your receipts, time sheets, and other paperwork handed in on time.

- kindness defends other members of the team, honour calls you to be proactive and brag about each other in conversation, sometimes right out of the blue.

- kindness involves taking care of your piece of the puzzle and being able to be counted on to do your job, honour calls you to look over the border of your job description to how you can help others achieve the mission of PAC.

Our chat eventually turned into some affirmations of when we do honour each other around here. 

Probably a dozen stories that all started:   "(Name),  when you _____ I felt honoured". 

Great teams honour each other, good teams settle for merely being kind.

Rest, Eat, and Listen.

This morning at FUEL I walked with PAC's leaders through the story of Elijah.  He has some seriously good things happening ministry wise.

- predicts there will be no rain (there isn't)

- God sends ravens to feed him

- He raises a dead boy back to life

- He calls down fire from heaven

- He then predicts there will be rain (there is)

- He then out sprints a chariot

Then he gets a death threat from a queen and he crashes.  His exact words:

"I have had enough Lord, take my life, I am no better than my ancestors."

Her message absolutely throws him for a loop.  His response is not connected at all to his reality.  But he just can't help it.  Why?

If you have ever spent yourself in the service of God you know EXACTLY how he feels. There is something absolutely exhausting about having God's mission flow through a human body.  I remember the physical exhaustion of the TransRockies race a few years ago.  Tamara tried to hug me at the finish line and I was so spent her hug actually made me moan in pain. 

Understand that Elijah is in the equivalent state emotionally.  Some of you who are invested in ministry know exactly how he feels and so you understand how 6 amazing acts of God can be trumped by 1 act of thoughtlessness or cruelty and have you wondering if God has ever used you in the past("no better than my ancestors") and trying to find a way to avoid the vulnerability of ministry in the future ("I have had enough Lord, take my life").  

I have yet to meet someone who has their heart fully invested in ministry who is immune to this.  We all get to a place where we lose touch with what God is doing and cannot get past how we are feeling.  We all deal with it differently but it affects everyone.  It happens because we are involved in these glorious spiritual adventures which are way too big for our bodies and which totally spend us.

So we can all learn from what happens next.

Elijah takes a nap.  

Then he eats.

Then he takes another nap. 

Then he gets by himself for awhile and waits to hear the voice of God.  

Then he goes back to doing more or less exactly the kind of thing he was doing before he crashed.

Turns out all the stuff he said was just him expressing fatigue.  He didn't need to second guess anything, he didn't need to quit, he didn't need to die, and he was as good as any prophet who ever came before him.

He just needed a nap, a sandwich, and to have his devotions.

Because some pastors' egos are too big for just one location.

For the next year at PAC the ONE CAMPAIGN will be our visible focus.

However, it fits into the larger dream of what we want to acheive by the time PAC turns 50 in 2012:

"Turn Portage Up to God, Side to Each Other, and Down in Humble Acts of Service by having 60 HouseChurches and 2 New Locations by 2012."

This goal has been the driving force behind hirings and budgeting, as well as events and programs like Protege, Apex, our yearly budget priorites and even the ONE CAMPAIGN.

Anyway, our ongoing process as we discern what kind of "locations" these 2 locations will be (will they be church plants of PAC clones? Will they be satellites?  Will they be hiving HouseChurches?) has brought elevation church to our attention.

A rapidly growing and marketing savvy bunch in Carolina, the blog of their lead pastor Steven Furtick is one of a handful I read a couple times a week.  Often it is helpful, sometimes it is worrisome, occasionally it is hilarious.  Always it is 100% high octane and the kind of "sold out sincere" to a certain methodology I often wish I could be to make life and leadership a whole lot less complicated. 

When something grows as fast as elevation has,using the strategy elevation has, they set themselves up to annoy a whole bunch of purists.  Throw a barely 30 pastor into the mix who likes to talk about his clothes, shoes, and his "brand"  and the critics really have a field day.   

I sure don't care to be one of them.  I have learned too much from watching elevation grow and am busy trying to do a decent job of helping lead PAC.  So the picture below of Furtick is not about Furtick but a reminder for me and every other pastor who is thinking "multi-site" to be sure of their motivation.

Plus it is pretty funny.

A Little Window.

I commented at a breakfast meeting last week about an investor who had a system which netted him over a billion $ in the wake of October of 2008 crash. It was kind of a cool contrarian story and a billion $ is a lot of money so I waited for the gang to "oooh" and "aaaaah".  Didn't happen.

The first response was Lydia's, "What a stupid thing to waste your life on."  Yes a billion dollars can do a lot of good and she probably wouldn't say no if someone gave it to her.  But her reaction is the kind of thing you love to hear the person who has huge input into your children's lives say.  It means she is on a mission, not waiting for a better offer.

The second response was Jake's, he just laughed appreciatively at Lydia.  Some people when they get to Jake's "stage" of life go live in Malibu.  Jake doesn't live in one, he drives one.  Back and forth from Wpg. to PAC bringing his experience, humor, and wisdom to help guide the young staff at PAC.

A little window for you into the kind of people who I get to work with at PAC. 

A little reminder for all of us about the difference between a job and a calling.

(Luke 18:27-10)

Only for "codependant, recovering, introverted, pagan, sanguine feelers".

I love a timely book. Personally, "The Black Swan", is illuminating some ideas for me (see reading list).

"Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories." (15)

This is worth unpacking. Taleb points out the necessity of categorization (good / bad, sanguine / melancholy, up/down). Of course he is right, categorization provides us with the map required to navigate through all areas of our lives.  He is also right about the shadow side.

The problem is the landscape continuously changes and so our maps become outdated. To hold onto categories too long means you miss something critical. In the worst case, you miss out on seeing a person. You see a category (snob / feeler / jock / etc) and you miss a person.

A healthy family or church does everyone a favor and allows the boundaries to be fuzzy. Allowing people to rewrite themselves continuously before our eyes. A scared person, family, or church has such a strong need for control that the categorization creates a boundary which cannot be breached. Pathological categorization comes out of a pathological fear and need for control. Likely impossible for someone so scared to treat people with grace.

And if you have tracked with me this far, I owe it to you to try to simplify all of the above, I guess what I am saying is:

The label you have placed on someones head and not removed says more about your fear and need to control than it does about them. Give them a second chance and both you and them will be better for it.

Categorization happens naturally.  It takes disciplined grace and maturity to keep the boundaries "fuzzy".

Shout out to our Programming Director (and Idzerd)

Regular readers will know I try not to miss an opportunity to brag on the staff team at PAC, or just PAC'ers in general on this blog.  One of the staff I have never singled out is none other than my darling wife Tamara.  For various reasons I have been hesitant.  In fact, it may surprise readers who are not PAC'ers to know that Tamara is on staff at PAC.  She came on in May as the Director of Programing.  It has made our lives more complicated in so many ways (family balance, finances, and sexual ethics in the workplace), but as her team leader I wouldn't have it any other way.

So indulge me while I brag on Tamara.

She has quickly become the best recruiter we have on staff.  She had to be.  We gave her 4 months to build enough teams to carry an additional weekend service!  But she did it.  Here is a bit of what I have seen her do since coming on staff:

- recruit and train 2-3 more light techs

- recruit and train 2 more sound guys

- recruit and train 2 more producers

- recruit and guide a programming team

- recruit enough musicians to form an additional band with an average age of 21  (eliminate the aging Mandy Ralph and Scotty Mak, and this drops to about 17), and to supplement the existing bands.  By my rough estimate there are 10 more musicians in the mix than 6 months ago; and more on the way.

- provide leadership to cafe and ushering ministries

- apologize with courage when she has made mistakes, it has been a heck of a learning curve and there have been some.  Her attitude has turned mistakes into beneficial experiences for her and her teams.

- continuously call those around her to excellence

- deal graciously with those who assumed she got the job because  her last name is "Weselake" (this was actually the main reason she almost didn't get the job - thanks to some clear thinking leaders at PAC who helped ME get over the hurdle)

But there are no misunderstandings now. 

It is a very short list of people who could do what she has done here in the last 7 months, during her 4 days a week.  PAC is as lucky to have her as we are to people like Peter and Mandy, Lydia and Dexter, Derek and Karen, Steve and Bonnie, Dave and Theresa, Darseen and Doug, Phil and Nettie, Aaron and Beth, Derek and Rhonda, Jon and Maureen, Dori and Idzerd (yes we have a guy named "Idzerd")...I could go on but it would risk turning my examples into a list and then I'd miss someone (I already expect a worried comment from Paul "what am I chopped liver?" Stanley)

So way to go Tamara, keep pulling people off the bench and into the game.

PS. Tamara never reads this blog, and if you tell her I was talking about her she'll be worried so maybe don't mention anything.